Most US industries have not yet embraced cookie alternatives for programmatic buying

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Key stat: Most industries still use cookies in the majority of their programmatic ad buying process, according to data from 33Across. Insurance is the outlier, with half of its buys coming from cookies and half coming from cookie alternatives.

Beyond the chart:

  • Skeptical of Google’s cookie deprecation date in 2024, advertisers have been slow to adopt cookie alternatives, said our analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf on a recent webinar. “But it seems to me like we’ve passed a point of no return,” she said. “I think by this time next year, third-party cookies will be no more.”
  • Contextual targeting is the most popular alternative to tracking and targeting consumers in a post-cookie world for programmatic ad buys, according to an October 2022 survey by the CMO Council.
  • But many different methods will need to be employed by advertisers to replace the effectiveness of third-party cookies, said Mitchell-Wolf.

Use this chart:

  • Identify where various industries are on their journey to adopting cookie alternatives.

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Methodology: Data is from the August 2023 33Across "Programmatic Cookie Alternative Trends Report: Q2 2023." Results are based on advertiser data of 200 brands across 20 industries with over 1 billion monthly paid impressions and supply data of over 200 publishers across 10 categories with over 3 billion monthly paid impressions during Q2 2023.

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